NEW DELHI: In a massive ramp up of testing for Covid-19, the government plans to double every three days the number of samples tested through RT-PCR process – considered mandatory for accurate results – by government laboratories. The scope of testing is going to be further widened by a number of other tests, including those used for tuberculosis along with the newly-sanctioned rapid antibody tests for diagnosis of suspected cases.
At present, government labs under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) are testing over 10,000 samples a day. This is expected to reach 20,000 in about three days and increase further over the next few weeks as per the plan. Apart from this, around 250 TrueNat machines and 200 CB-NAAT machines (more popular as GeneXpert) used for tuberculosis testing will be deployed for testing Covid-19 suspects, official sources said.
“TrueNat and CB-NAAT are cartridge-based nuclei acid amplification tests.
